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PROVO — Perhaps the offseason hype spurred by BYU's hire of former Phoenix Suns rising coaching star Kevin Young and the additions of five-star freshman Egor Demin and fellow NBA draft hopeful Kanon Catchings overshadowed a basic narrative of the Cougars' 2024-25 season.
While the program returned a core of players from last year's top-half team in the Big 12, it also lost its leading scorer and brought in six new faces who saw minutes Friday night.
That clearly led to several defensive lapses and lost communication against a UC Riverside squad that returned the bulk of its roster, including reigning Big West freshman of the year Barrington Hargress.
So take any criticism of the Cougars and their Big 12-level talent with a grain of salt after just two games. But a poor 3-point shooting performance — both in takes and makes — and struggles from the free-throw line may leave Young and his team a bit salty.
Of course, it's easier to take criticism and identify blind spots with wins than losses, and that's what BYU men's basketball felt after a resplendent performance from former Wasatch Academy teammates Fousseyni Traore and Keba Keita in Friday night's 86-80 win over UC Riverside in front of 17,381 fans at the Marriott Center.
"I mean, we've gotta figure out each other. I think that's the first thing," said BYU wing Richie Saunders, who had 12 points, six rebounds, a steal and a chase-down block that may have been the play of the game. "But facing the adversity it was, came out with a win, and I think that's the biggest thing to show.
"We have a lot of stuff that we've got to figure out or that we have got to improve on, and we will, you know ... we're new with each other, and that's why we got these games."
Give credit to UC Riverside, an 0-2 team that gave Oregon all it could handle in a season-opening 91-75 loss in Eugene four days before tipping off in front of the sold-out student section in the Marriott Center. The Highlanders (0-2) had four double-digit scorers, led by Kaleb Smith's 20 points and four rebounds, and drained 11-of-28 3-pointers, including five in the second half, to trim a 17-point deficit to 6 in BYU's wire-to-wire win.
There will be points of contention on that scouting report for BYU, including closing out shooters, creating space from the peskier perimeter defenses the Cougars are bound to see in the best college basketball conference in the country beginning in January, and other improvements to be had.
It's Game 2. No team in college basketball is a finished product, and BYU shouldn't be held to that standard, either. But one thing stood out in the Cougars' first two regular-season games, and they have little to do with the opponent: free throws.
The Cougars shout just 14-of-26 from the charity stripe against the Highlanders, including a 2-of-6 finish from Demin, who otherwise dazzled at point guard with 20 points, seven assists and five rebounds with just two turnovers.
He wasn't alone; Keita was 4-of-6 from the free-throw line, Dawson Baker went 3-of-4, and Saunders, Traore and Trevin Knell all converted 1-of-2 apiece. Only Mihailo Boskovic had a 100% conversion rate, a perfect 2-of-2 on the evening.
"We found a way to win the game, and that's it," Demin told BYUtv. "And I found a way that I need to practice more free throws. I'm not going to lie, I need to work on that in the morning. Everybody found something in this game."
Everyone makes mistakes Egor 🤷♂️ @whoisegor3pic.twitter.com/3EUiasshtR
— BYUtv Sports Nation (@BYUSportsNation) November 9, 2024
Add to it the 7-of-11 finish from the line in Tuesday's 88-50 rout of Central Arkansas, and the Cougars are 21-of-37 from the stripe — a cause for concern, Young admits.
"It's kind of been a common theme in some of these exhibition games, too," he said. "There's no real magic secret to it; you've got to step up there and knock them down. We try to encourage our guys to shoot as many as they can, so we'll just keep working at it."
No excuses came from the BYU locker room, either.
"We've shot enough free throws to make them," Saunders added. "You've just gotta get back to doing it under pressure and doing it with 20,000 people watching you, and we will. It's just coming out and doing it. That's all it is, really just making them.
"We've shot enough free throws in our lives and even in the last week to never miss on. We'll figure it out, and we'll do it."
BYU returns to regular-season play Wednesday against Queens (N.C.) at 7 p.m. MST before hosting Idaho next Saturday, Nov. 16 at 1 p.m. MST in the Marriott Center.
